Fela, the “Abami Eda” himself, lived and died before the James Ibori saga, where there seems absolutely no difference between wilful self-demonisation, resulting from bad personal choices; and communal re-canonisation, arising from empty sentiments and misguided love.

Yet, Fela excellently captured, in his famous number quoted above, the sheer unreason behind the Ibori brouhaha. Since when did thievery, duly confirmed by a court of law, become communal controversy, in the fond hope of wishing away the obvious?

Take the parts, in this whole gripping drama, of two lords, one judicial, the other spiritual, both sandwiching the Ibori London debacle.

Lord Judicial, Justice Marcel Awokulehin. His Asaba Federal High Court threw out Ibori’s 170-count sleaze charges, claiming the accused was as clean as a whistle.

The London Southwark Crown Court, however, proudly differed, slamming Ibori in the can, after he pleaded guilty to the charges before it. With that conviction, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) appealed the Awokulehin verdict. The Court of Appeal has since tossed the judgment into the Atlantic, and ruled that Ibori indeed had a case to answer.

Which is why it’s a little surprising that another “Awo”, but this time a Lord Spiritual, Archbishop God-do-well Avwomakpa, was busy beatifying Ibori as one of the latter saints, flushed with excitement on the pulpit, during the Ibori thanksgiving in Oghara, Delta State.

St. Ibori may well be among the latter saints, for with all his personal tragedies, he boasts a huge community value in his native Oghara; and has shown personal kindness to not a few. But that sainthood does not extend to probity with public money, for which gargantuan misappropriation he has been found guilty and gaoled by a court of law.

Sonala Olumhense, the respected columnist, even introduced a strange skew to the mix, pushing that since the Delta people gathered at Oghara were busy toasting Ibori, instead of roasting him, and because the diaspora perceived them as simply “Nigerian”, the Buhari anti-sleaze crusade had collapsed!

Shuo? So, the anti-corruption war is now a behavioural barracks, when there ought to be no controversy as to right or wrong? And in a purported democracy too?

Besides, couldn’t SO have swiftly educated his beloved diaspora that only his Delta cousins, not the entire Nigerians, were toasting Ibori? Must the government spew out everything? Talk of the corruption of logic! But it’s all fit ingredients for the Ibori brew!

Hardball would not gloat over the misfortune of anyone. Ibori made a grievous mistake. He has paid for his crime. He should be allowed to be.

But that closure is difficult to attain, if the convict blusters to please a crowd that was, at best, misguided; and holy fathers, who should know, speak in tongues on holy nothings!

Let this rascality stop here and now. Crime and punishment have run their course. But let the convict stay penitently quiet!